Putting the art and soul into business along with profit and growth.
Welcome to issue 20 of Own The Cow. Hard to believe we're 20 weeks into this exploration of redefining what it means to work and how we work. I feel like I'm getting started myself. There are many different threads to pull on yet the most important is ourselves. How we define our work and our future is heavily influenced by mindset and resilience. Together, a positive, open mind combined with the ability to get back up and keep going separate those who do from those who quit. This week I want to talk about contrasts in how to approach business. From only profit and scale to profit and doing good. Often lost is the humanity in business.
Let's humanize business
I've spent a chunk of my career marketing for B2B companies. There's been a common school of thought that if you're B2B you must be all business and no emotion. It's just business after all. Except it never is. Business is about people.
Famed investor Howard Marks was talking about how there's no such thing as a market. There are only people trading. And we group those people trading into what we call 'the market'. He talks about how whenever people talk about stocks they show a photo of the New York Stock Exchange or Wall Street as if that was the market. Yet behind that photo is just people.
People who make irrational decisions based on what they know or think they know. Some believe that stocks are too high and so they buy. Some think they're too low and they sell in a panic. They use their heart rather than data. Which is inherently a bad way to operate in investing. That's a place where you need to remove the emotion.
But what about B2B? It, too, is about people. Yes, people making and selling products. But people who create and sell these products. It's people who buy from people they connect with and trust. It's inherently emotional. Yet that's where the magic lies. In connection and community. In making a difference.
Who wakes up in the morning excited to work on spreadsheets? Not to dismiss the need for spreadsheets, but it doesn't need to be your main focus.
I believe there's room for more humanity in business. Given the increase in loneliness and isolation, and the amount of time we work, doesn't it feel a helluva lot better to care about the people you work with and the work you're doing? Doesn't it feel better to earn money AND do good? Profit and doing good are not mutually exclusive despite the abundance of data that shows otherwise.
I was struck by two recent examples:
The first is a company called Rocket Internet. Their whole business strategy is copying other Silicon Valley businesses fast and furious in markets they don't operate in and then selling it back to those companies for many multiples. It's quite lucrative. And completely devoid of humanity. The only thing that matters to the leadership is whether or not you made your numbers.
Profitable growth isn't even the focus. It's simply growth. Pouring gas via money to dominate a market as fast as possible. And then exiting, leaving the acquiring company responsible for figuring out how to make a profit. And they have no shame in copying. Needless to say, they are not loved in the Valley.
My aversion to this strategy likely speaks to my lack of financial independence. I'm not that cutthroat. I'm trying to achieve that on an alternative path where profits and heart coexist.
The second came out of an entrepreneur's group I'm in which has been amazing to connect with and learn from others building businesses. It's all about ideas and how to execute as quickly as possible too in order to scale. The idea was to take advantage of the emotion out of the election and appeal to Trump supporters who felt cheated with a line of t-shirts and gear with sayings like "Rigged 2020" and all of the other conspiracy theories abounding.
The thinking was that you could quickly set up a shop and make $100k selling such merchandise, acknowledging that some businesses are merely opportunistic. And yes, there are people selling such merch. But there is no way I could pursue such an endeavor just for the money. Even if it might be lucrative. To me it perpetuates the division in our culture and serves no one except for the one selling the goods. And as a brand builder, I cringe at the thought of such superficiality and disposability. And of course, how could anyone take me seriously when I put out something meaningful? Would they see it as just opportunistic? Flavor of the month?
This could work if you were a serial entrepreneur building and selling businesses rapidly. Like Rocket Internet but on a different level.
There is another way
I believe there's another way. I believe I've missed opportunities and made many missteps along the way. Yet I've also learned and made meaningful connections. Money is a very valuable tool. But it's not the only thing that matters.
Which brings me back to putting the human in B2B. Someone said this week that B2B stands for 'being to being'. Whether you sell to businesses or consumers. Why not wake up in the morning designing your work or business to improve people's lives AND make money? I argue the world doesn't need more superfluous brands. Society doesn't. And certainly the earth doesn't. It doesn't need more waste.
It needs more love. And less fear.
What if you focused your energy on creating community and connection with your customers? And by solving the problems that matter to them? Your customers might be the people you work with in your company. If you create wow and delight and meaning for the people that matter, then they'll be drawn to you and you'll grow. They'll tell others who will help you grow more. The examples above represent a zero-sum game. It doesn't need to be this way.
Dream big and be kind.
Perhaps the most refreshing take on making an impact AND a profit is The Unreasonable Group. They see capitalism and profit as a powerful tool for good. They are all about massive growth in the businesses that tackle the world's most pressing problems.
At the heart of what they do is community and connection. You can actually outperform the rest of other industries in the world by the amount of good you are doing. It's not easy. Success isn't guaranteed. Yet look at the impact they've had: 345 million lives touched over 180 countries and $4.7 billion raised.
Check out their manifesto and also a side project: Gyshido. What I like is the quirky manner in which they share a smart message that applies to all of us in our work: in short, apply relentless focus consistently, don't multitask, avoid needless meetings and don't be an ass.
Speaking of consistency, Wayne Thiebaud turned 100 yesterday. He still paints.
"If you stare at an object, as you do when you paint, there is no point at which you stop learning things from it."
Stare at your most thorny problems. There may be opportunity lurking inside.
Is small is the new big?
Much is written and celebrated about venture-backed start ups and unicorns. Who doesn't want to be a part of the next Airbnb? They're sexy. They're interesting. There's a cache to calling yourself an entrepreneur.
Yet there are millions of individuals striving to make ends meet in micro businesses (mom-and-pops haven't gone anywhere). Or individual practitioners and freelancers. Or slogging away in large companies hoping they're not going to be cut.
As I talk about creating your portfolio of work, never before has it been so easy to create the infrastructure needed to grow and sustain a vibrant small business. I'm talking about the opportunity to be a solopreneur. You can outsource everything you can't or don't want to do. It's still hard. It's still not for everyone. There is still the need to price and sell yourself or your products.
There is a huge range of possibility between solopreneurship and what the Unreasonable Group is doing.
With reckoning that is likely going to continue in the job market where still no one knows where we'll land, it's an opportunity to think and create. If you have a solid career in corporation I wouldn't necessarily recommend leaping into your own thing. But I would recommend dancing with the possibility to prepare should you find yourself at the intersection of work and reinvention.